A $10,000 grant award from Evergy to Pittsburg State University’s Nature Reach program will help fund the Raptor Ambassadors Improved Housing project, including repair, improvements, and expansion to the enclosures built by the Westar Green Team in 2007 and 2011.

The enclosures house raptors that are unable to live in the wild but are of great value to Nature Reach, which uses them in outreach programs with children and adults across the region. Not only will the improved enclosures benefit the raptors, they’ll benefit PSU students as they’ll be able to gain real-world experience in animal care and become more knowledgeable about the new standards and training techniques.

Over the past six years, PSU Nature Reach has provided programming in 30 communities, primarily in Southeast Kansas, but also in Southwest Missouri and Northeast Oklahoma. Annually, Nature Reach serves approximately 4,000 students in grades K-12, as well as undergraduate level university students, most of whom are majoring in biology at PSU.